Nippon Ichi May Go Under if Disgaea 5 Doesn’t Sell

A recent survey of Japanese game developers by Dengeki Playstation about their plans for the near future turned up some rather unfortunate news regarding Nippon Ichi, the developer of the Disgaea family of games and their spin-offs. In the survey, NI states that if they do not sell 150,000 or more copies of the upcoming Disgaea 5, a PS4 exclusive, then it is very likely that they will go out of business, as stated in the following statement from NIS head, Shinkawa Sohei (translation by zeromcd73 via NeoGaf):

“If Disgaea 5 doesn’t sell as planned then we might not still be in business the year after. Even though Bloodborne is now releasing the same day, we really hope people will pick up both titles at once.”

This is not the first time the Nippon Ichi has teetered on the brink of destruction, as the developer and publisher has stated on several occasions in the past that their financial situation is less then stable. Even a NIS flagship series like Disgaea has only sold maybe 70,000 units on the top-end for Vita in Japan. The console iterations have seen significant drop-off from there. Such economic issues may also be the root cause of Nippon Ichi losing the publishing rights to both the Atelier series, now published in America by Tecmo Koei, and the Hyper Dimensional Neptunia game franchise, which has since returned to its parent company Idea Factory, who has recently set up an American branch. President Niikawa Sohei also echoed similar sentiment about Disgaea 5 on a live broadcast with GameKana a few months earlier.

Disgaea 5 will release on March 26, 2015 and is exclusive to Playstation 4.

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My name is Nicole Seraphita and I’m 27. I’ve been gaming since the days of the NES and have owned at least one system from each generation since then. My favorite type of games if most definitely RPGs, with my favorites being titles like Chrono Cross, Persona 4, and Tales of Xillia, though I also sometimes dabble in platforming games, fighting games, and visual novels.
When I’m not writing for APGNation or playing games, I enjoy table top and card games, watch anime, and write fiction that I occasionally publish online. I tend to write a lot of Sci-fi and the occasional bit of fantasy, with the often overlooked sub-genre of Biopunk being my favorite. I’ve also written a few visual novels, though only one of them has made it all the way to completion thus far. My current dream is to be able to bring the Monster Girl genre to a western audience.